Beer-cation: Denver Brewery/Beer Bar Crawl

After a somewhat short day of traveling, I was ready to hit up the Denver bar scene. I kept notes of my night, so here are my thoughts.

My crawl started at my AirBnB in the top right corner and I walked to the Epic Brewing Company. I stepped out the door, plugged in my buds, hit play on a Mac Miller album, and got my stroll on.

I really enjoyed Epic Brewery. Aside from their great beer, they had a great ambiance and all around good feel.

Beer # 1: Escape to Colorado, brewed with Mosaic and Apollo, nitro tap. Grapefruit, passion fruit, dank bitterness, citrus fruit, soft creamy mouthfeel, bitterness lingers. 6.0%. 7/10

Beer #2: Brainless on Peaches, Belgian strong ale, brewed with peaches, aged in French Oak white wine barrels. 11.5%. Sour, then sweet peach aroma. Punches like a strong ale, then goes to peaches, finishes with the alcohol bite of a chardonnay. 7.5/10 (Picture wouldn't upload)

They had a couple TVs over the bar, so I was able to catch a few innings of the Pittsburgh shellacking before heading to the second bar.

After two beers I was already feeling the effects of the alcohol in my head, but I hadn't planned on eating dinner until Bar #4. Danger.

I settled my tab and headed to the River North Brewery, singing along to the bubbly indie sounds of Vampire Weekend. On my way I caught my first sighting of a marijuana dispensary as well as a huge building for the Church of Scientology. I was caught off guard by the latter and I later learned that this is actually the headquarters for the "Church". Amazing - our schedule is still clear on Saturday so I'm thinking a tour of the headquarters to learn more about our dianetics is in order.

I arrived at River North, their taproom was very small, but it was a pretty hip spot, with artistic prints of things around their brewery and a wall covered in stickers of other American craft breweries. I really love the culture of the craft beer industry, it's like no other industry in the way that they treat each other like family. When it came to the beer, this was the bar I was most excited for based on what I read online, particularly their barrel aging program. In the end, I was a bit let down. The quality of the beer didn't quite meet my expectations.

Beer #3: J'Marie Whiskey, Farmhouse Ale aged in Whiskey barrels. 7.5%. Caramel, toffee whiskey notes. Vanilla/Whiskey burn flavour, clean crisp finish (only similarity to a saison, not barnyard/funky at all). 6.5/10

Beer #4: J'Marie Barreled with Brett. I think I have a bias towards Brett. As soon as a smell it, my knees tremble. I wish I could get this scent in candle form. Aroma: don't know how to describe it other than simple and bretty. Flavour is a bit to bitter competing with the brett, but that makes sense since the base beer is a saison. It tastes good, but it smells better. 8.0/10.

 

Next up was the Great Divide, I paired the walk to this brewery with a little Big D & The Kids Table.

Beer #5: Claymore Scotch Ale, 7.7%. Leathery, slightly smoky, malty aroma. Very slight scotch aroma, a bit burnt smoky flavour. Finishes rather dry, not much residual sweetness. 5.5/10.

 

Beer #6: Yeti oak aged Imperial Stout. (ABV unkown). Chocolate, Roasty, coffee aroma. Bitterness from the roasted coffee and a bit an astringent mouthfeel from the coffee. Still pretty sweet, a style I love. 8/10.

Next up was the beer bar Fresh Craft. Finally it was Bar #4, where I planned on eating dinner. Suffice to say, I was pumped for food, I was listening to Sleigh Bells and jogging/heel kicking on my way. As I waited for my beer to show up, I chugged a glass of water and inhaled a aged cheddar, bacon, beer soup. This was delicious, so much cheddar and smokey bacon flavour. It was thick, creamy and very rich.

I ordered Dogfish Head's Punkin Ale as I've never had it and I wanted to use it as a base to compare against my Basic Bitch Pumpkin Ale that I'll be cracking open in a week. Unfortunately they were out of stock, so I settled for the Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, not a bad backup.

Beer #7: Dogfish Head 90 Min IPA. 9.0%. I've had it before, obviously love it. Sweet like a liqueur, fruity taste, but dank bitterness, finishing a bit sweet. 8.5/10.

For my main I had the meatloaf sandwich with coleslaw, which was pretty good and very rich/full flavoured, but it didn't quite measure up to the Black Dog's meatloaf sandwich, which sets the bar high.

I set sail for the final bar of my crawl, Falling Rock Tap House. I got a bit lost on my way and started a conversation with a couple San Fran Giants fans. I talked to them for a while about the game and they decided to join me at Falling Rock as they were looking to celebrate their team's win.

Beer #8: Crooked Stave. At this point I was more worried about conversing and less about analyzing the beer. I didn't even document the name or style of the beer. All I remember is that it was puckering in sourness and very yummy. 8.0/10.

It was just about midnight and I had to get up somewhat early to head to Golden, so I hailed a cab and hit the hay. It was a great beer crawl journey and with the number of breweries in Denver, you could switch up your route many times and never get bored. 

Thanks for reading!

Slow Cooked Meatballs in a Beer BBQ Sauce & IPA Cheese Dip

With the NFL season nearly kicking off, my Fantasy Football league held our annual draft party yesterday. I spent Saturday afternoon preparing a couple beer infused recipes that turned out well and seemed to be well received by everyone at the party. When you're cooking with beer, you have to think similarly to when you're pairing beer with food. When you're deciding on a beer to cook with, think about how the beer's intensity matches all of the ingredients in the recipe. You don't want the beer's flavour to overpower the ingredients in the dish and vice versa. Also, remember that when you cook with any liquid, it reduces, which will magnify the flavours from the beer. If you're using a bitter beer, be careful as the end result will likely be a bitter dish.

Meat Balls
2 lbs of lean ground beef
1 cup of fine chopped red onions
1 tsp of minced garlic
2 eggs
Ground salt and pepper

Mix and roll ingredients into your preferred size of meatballs. Heat up a pan with a little bit up olive oil and brown the meatballs prior to adding them to the crock pot.

Beer BBQ Sauce

Butter

½ cup chopped onions

1 table spoon of minced garlic

2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce

2 Cups of Ketchup

2 tablespoons of Dijon honey

1 tablespoon of molasses

1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar

Salt

Pepper

1 Cup of beer (Wellington Russian Imperial Stout)

2 ounces of bourbon (spontaneous decision)

In a pot, add butter with the garlic and onions and sauté until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients with the exception of the alcohol. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the beer and continue to simmer for 5 more minutes. You can tweak the recipe by switching up the style of beer you add. I chose Wellington's Russian Imperial Stout for the big malty, roasty, dark chocolate and coffee flavours that would work well with ground beef, but you could use an amber ale if you're using the BBQ sauce with a lighter meat like chicken. I also made a spontaneous decision to add 2 ounces of Wild Turkey Bourbon as I knew who my audience was for this appetizer. Bourbon will add some vanilla and caramel flavours to the sauce. Remove the sauce from the heat source and strain away the onions and garlic.

Add the BBQ sauce over the meatballs in a crock pot and cook on low for 5 hours before serving.

IPA Cheese Dip

500 grams of cream cheese

300 grams 3 year old cheddar (Balderson)

100 grams aged gouda

100 grams blue cheese

200 grams of bell red peppers

1 teaspoon of garlic

1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard

1 teaspoone of Worcestershire sauce

8 ounces IPA (Red Racer IPA)

If you had a food processer, add all the indregients and process. If you have a blender like me, mix ingredients in a bowl first, then add to the blender. This is a recipe that you can play around with all of the ingredients as well. I wanted to ensure I matched the intensities of all the flavours, so I chose to use some bigger flavoured aged and blue cheeses along with the cream cheese. Adding some stronger cheeses contrasts the bitter, piney, resiny aspects of the IPA. I love the pairing of blue cheese with an IPA, but I only used it for 1/10 of the cheese ratio as it may overpower the rest of the flavours otherwise.

Put the dip into an oven safe bowl and bake in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes, or until the top begins getting golden. Serve warm with crackers of your choice or tortillas chips.

I really enjoyed both recipes and I definitely plan on making more of the BBQ sauce again soon to use on some pork tenderloin, burgers and ribs. If you decide to make either of these recipes, I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

Thanks for reading!

Beer-cation: Brooklyn

I've continued to brew this summer, but I haven't made time to sit down and blog. I'll attribute that to summer, meaning I'd rather spend my time being outdoorsy (drinking beer on a patio). This summer I've brewed a 4% all Citra hop ale (named Citradamus Session Ale) and a 7.5% and 90 IBU IPA (named #ftb [For The Boys] IPA), which I bottled last night and will be ready for Week 1 Sunday of the NFL season.

This past weekend I went on a road trip down to Brooklyn with my good friend, his girlfriend and her friend. New York state and Pennsylvania had beautiful landscapes, packed full of hills and valleys, while New Jersey was a bit of a different story. It took approximately 12 hours to get there, including traffic and stops, in a tightly seated two door Honda Civic (well, tight for a 6'3 male). Suffice it to say, even with the beautiful view, I'll be flying next time.

Once we got to the hotel, the first thing I did was find the closest alcohol retailer to procure some beers. At a deli a mere stones throw away, I'm welcomed by the likes of Sierra Nevada, Victory and Dogfish Head. After we enjoy a few American craft brews, we head out for dinner at a southern style smokehouse. I don't recall the name, but the meat was great and was ordered by the weight, which is great for us Big Country types. The beer at the restaurant wasn't anything to rave about, but I was excited to find Coors Banquet stubbies, which I've been advocating Molson Coors should import to Canada.

After dinner we hailed a cab and head to Williamsburg to check out the nightlife that I've head a lot about. We started at Over The Eight, which I suppose you could categorize as a Hipster Bar. I had a couple pints of the Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA and splurged on their shot of Whiskey and a Miller Lite $5 deal.

Later in the evening, we accidentally stumbled into a beer bar named Tørst, which I immediately remembered reading about prior to the trip. It's a very classy wood-clad decorated beer bar, with dim lighting, marble surfaces, and wooden draft taps, rather than the typical tacky tap handles. The first thing that came to mind was Toronto's barVolo, partially because of the nearly identical beer glasses.

Both the draft and bottle lists were filled with rare beers from breweries of which I could only name a few. The bartender was awesome and seemed to see right into my soul, asking if I enjoy sours, at which point I obviously said "YES!" and he brought one of his favourites on draft. After that I ordered the Oerbeer from De Dolle Brouwers, which is a Belgian Strong Dark Ale and was delicious. I discussed the Toronto beer scene with the bartender and was impressed to find he knew barVolo and had a friend who was a brewer at Amsterdam. Eventually he pulled out a bottle of Witchshark Imperial IPA from Bellwoods, which was apparently a special bottle for the staff, otherwise I was offering to purchase it for some bar patrons I befriended.

 

On Saturday I met up with a good friend from Laurier, that now lives in NYC. After we waited in line to get tour tickets for the Brooklyn Brewery, we wandered around a food vendor market on the water front of Williamsburg, looking into Manhattan. We headed back to the brewery for our 3:00PM scheduled tour, which visually wasn't anything too exciting. Once you've done one brewery tour, you've done them all - "Here's the mash tun, lauter tun, kettle and fermentation tanks... let's go drink". What was special about this tour was the guide, he was a great story teller and quite funny. I really enjoyed the history of brewery, why they decided to open the brewery, and how they progressed to be where they are today. After the tour, we enjoyed a few beers, my favourite being the BLAST! Imperial IPA.

Saturday evening I saw Arcade Fire perform at the Barclays Center and was very happy that they served delicious American IPAs, though the price was still absurd. On Sunday morning, we began our trip home, but it wouldn't be a Beer-cation if I didn't bring home some craft beer that's not available in Canada, so we made a stop at a convenience store in Pennsylvania.

The trip was awesome, but much too short and I am looking to head back to visit my NYC resident friend, check out more of the scene and indulge in much more American craft beer in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

Great Canadian Homebrew Competition - My Results

This past Saturday I attended the Great Canadian Homebrew Conference, hosted by The Rhino. The day was filled with the GCHC medal ceremony, great guest speakers, many pints of beer and a hour or so of homebrew tastings from the attendees. The guest speaker topics included an in depth discussion about the mashing process as well as a presentation about hop farms, breweries and barrel aging on the west-coast with Zack Weinberg of Toronto Brewing, and finally a synopsis of what went into writing Ian Coutts' book "The Perfect Keg". The whole event was very interesting, but also a very humbling experience. As far as the homebrew competition, I went home empty handed, while some of the competitors had multiple medals around their necks. When talking to other competitors, I really got a feeling of the amount of experience and knowledge in the room. Having only brewed all-grain for 6 months now, this experience has really motivated me to continue learning and brewing.

Even though my three entries did not place, I received some good feedback from the many BJCP judges. Since it's difficult to read the scanned scoresheets, I'm just going to provide one for format reference. I'll spend the rest of the blog summarizing the feedback and what I took away from it.

Huron County Saison: Scores 33/32/24 out of 50
This was the beer I was most confident entering and for the most part the judges agreed with my thoughts. It was described as very light in malt aroma, no sourness and slight phenolic character, though one judge noted boiled egg and cooked whitefish. The appearance was scored strongly by all judges, straw yellow, clear with good head retention. The flavour scoring was mixed, mentioning light malt/bread, medium to sharp bitterness, light spiciness with one judge mentioning lemon-like fruit esters. The mouthfeel was primarily described as medium carbonation, low/no creaminess, light body with a dry finish.

What I took away from this feedback is that I should consider fermenting at a higher temperature to get more fruity esters, phenolic/spicy character and tartness. I could perhaps use another grain in my grain bill to provide a more malty background or aim for a higher final gravity, but I personally prefer Saisons to be refreshing and dry, so I was pretty happy with the final gravity.

Curmudgeon IPA: Scores 20/22/24 out of 50
When I entered this beer, I already knew there were flaws. I knew that the original gravity was higher than I wanted, causing the ABV to be too high and thus out of style. As a result, the coordinators moved my entry into the Double IPA category. I also knew that with the higher ABV my hop bitterness and aroma were too subtle.

I got killed on aroma, scoring less than 50% by all three judges. One judged mentioned that a oxidized (papery) aroma dominated the malt character. The other two described green apple, little grassy and low esters, but being very low on hop bitterness/aroma. Similar to the Saison, I scored nearly perfect across the board on appearance, with the judges describing a golden/copper colour, with great clarity and a foamy white head with good retention. As for flavour, they all agreed I fell short on hop flavour and bitterness and that it finished much too sweet. For the mouthfeel, they felt it had a medium finish and medium to light carbonation. Overall they agreed it was much too soft in hop bitterness. Aside from adding more hops, they feel I could increase the bitterness and reduce off flavours by lowering my fermenting temperature.

Breakfast of Champions - Oatmeal Coffee Stout: Scores 29/32 out of 50
Both judges seemed to enjoy the aroma, emphasizing the strong coffee notes and roasted malts, but one judge did mention slight acidity. Appearance scored well, as being very dark/black with a tan head. The flavour was very roast forward, missing some balance and having a bit of a harsh aftertaste. Mouthfeel was light-medium body, no carbonation, thin, missing the creaminess of a typical Oatmeal Stout. Overall they felt the beer could use a thicker body and to be a little less harsh on the roasted malts.

One recommendation was to increase the mash temperature, which I would agree with and will definitely try with my next stout. This would reduce the fermentability of the wort, increase the final gravity and hopefully provide a more full bodied beer. They didn't provide a recommendation to reduce the acidity, which I felt was an issue prior to entering the beer. I'm pretty sure it was caused by the whole coffee beans added in the secondary. Next time I will try the recipe without adding any coffee beans or coffee at all and see what difference it makes.

In summary, I'm happy with how the competition went. It was a bit of a humbling experience, but I got some good feedback, met some great home brewers and picked up some brewing/fermenting techniques.

Thanks for reading!

Black Cherry Saison

I decided to colour outside of the BJCP guidelines with one of the recipes I recently designed. I wanted to create a beer that would be confusing to the drinker. The style I was targeting was one I've made recently, a Saison, but I wanted to confuse the eye and ramp the SRM level up towards 40. I also went with an American breed of hop for bittering, which is also uncommon for the style. On this brew day I was joined by a friend who is currently in the middle of her PHD in Biochemistry. Like me, she also has a love for yeast and was interested in learning about the brewing process.

When designing the recipe, the first thing I wanted to do was throw off the eye with a pitch dark colour. What I didn't want to do was impart too much of the roasty, bitterness that comes from many dark malts. After some researched, it looked like my best bet was Midnight Wheat Malt, as it was labelled as the smoothest source of black colour from any malt. While I was milling the grain Sunday morning I tasted a couple grains, I still got some roasty flavour, but I don't think there is a way to completely avoid that. I used Bohemian Pilsner Malt as the base malt for the grain bill, which is the same one I used for the Huron County Saison.

I decided to stick with the same mash schedule as the Huron County Saison as I was looking for a similar dry finish. We mashed in at 153F for 90 minutes and mashed out at a temperature of 147F. By mashing in that temperature range we are looking to activate the beta amylase enzyme group, in turn producing more maltose, which is the main sugar fermented in the wort. Once the mash was complete, we filtered the wort into the brew pot, sparged with 168F water and gathered a total of 6 gallons pre-boil. As you can see in the third picture below, we ended up with basically a pitch-black colour by using 1 pound of the Midnight Wheat Malt.

At the start of the 90 minute boil, we added 1 ounce of Glacier hops for bittering. My hope was this American breed of hop would add a bit of citrus, fruity, woody, herb notes, while not being overly bitter since the Alpha Acid (5.0%) is much lower than typical American Pale Ale hops. With 10 minutes left in the boil, we added 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops, a Japanese breed with a high AA (11.9%) and a more regular choice for the Saison style. Adding it later in the boil, I was hoping some of the lemon characteristics would shine through.

Once the boil was complete, we cooled the wort and filter it through a strainer into the plastic fermenting bucket. I gave April the honour of pitching our billions of yeasty friends into the wort to get to work. 

Over the next week and a half I'll need to pick up a can of the Oregon Cherry Puree as I'll be racking the wort into the secondary a week from Sunday, on top of the cherry puree as well as another 0.5 ounce of Sorachi Ace hops. I'm hoping to get some big cherry flavour and tartness as well as a bit more lemon notes by dry hopping.

Thanks for reading!

Beer Tasting - Huron County Saison

I went home for the May 24 long weekend and thought that was a great time to do my tasting blog on the Huron County Saison. I had the chance to share some with my parents (my dad was the co-brewer) and some of my friends who I grew up with. For the most part I'd say the beer was received well. I decided to pop a bottle in the element that inspired the beer, on my pool deck at my childhood home, vibing to folk/reggae sounds of Current Swell, with the smell of farmer's fields nearby.

I'll be following the five category format from beeradvocate.com: Appearance, Smell, Taste, Mouthfeel and Overall.  

Appearance: Very light straw yellow colour, hazy with a little bit of yeast sediment floating around. Pours a light bubbly head that dissipates quickly.

Smell: Hay, fresh cut grass, earthy aromas. A bit of faint funkiness from the Saison yeast strand. A bit of sweet honey aroma as well.

Taste: Right off the bat I get the earthy bitterness from the Saaz and Sterling hops. The flavour then moves to a funky farmhouse and sort of straw/woodiness. I get a bit of residual sweetness from the honey, but it finishes very clean and dry and slightly warming aftertaste from the 6.7% ABV.

Mouthfeel: Extremely light and refreshing and very easy drinking. I could drink a ton of these on a patio or around a pool on a hot summer day, which could get dangerous with the relatively high ABV.

Overall: I honestly think this is the best beer that I've made so far, but that has to do with how close it is to the style than anything else. I feel like it's a great gateway beer for light or basic lager drinkers as it's very light in colour, dry in finish and still packs some interesting flavours, while not being offensively bitter. I'm entering three beers in the Great Canadian Homebrew Competition this week and I feel like the Huron County Saison has the best chance in it's class at potentially placing.

Thanks for reading!

Diables Rouges Belgian Golden Strong Ale

With the World Cup fast approaching, I decided to brew a beer inspired by the country I'll be cheering for this year, Belgium. I've chosen to cheer for Belgium merely because they are my favourite beer producing country, which I feel is as good a reason as any. I brewed a Belgian Golden Strong Ale, which is the style of beer that really kick started my love for Belgian beer through the popular beer Delirium Tremens.

Last September I went on the trip of my life thus far, a beer-cation through Heidelberg, Bruges, Brussels, Berlin and Munich. On a travel day between Bruges and Brussels we made a stop in the city of Ghent for a tour of the Huyghe Brewery, where Delirium Tremens is brewed. The tour was in Flemish/Dutch as we joined a large group, but it was wonderful to see the complete facilities where one of my favourite beers is brewed.

When developing a recipe for a Belgian Golden Strong Ale, the focus of the flavours should come through from the esters and phenols from the Belgian strand of yeast you use. It's also very typical to use spices in the beer and to ensure the beer finishes dry, thin and refreshing sugar is used in addition to the malt bill. For my recipe I've used Pilsner Malt as the base malt and I made my own Belgian Candi sugar from scratch, which is substantially cheaper than purchasing from a homebrew shop. 2 pounds of hard candi sugar will set you back ~$12, I made mine for $2.50. I also used coriander seeds to provide a subtle citrus flavour.

Making your own Belgian Candi sugar is so easy that it's really hard to justify paying the prices at the homebrew shops, plus you can control the flavour and colour profile. You could skip this step and use plain table sugar in it's original state (sucrose), but the yeast will have to work harder to breakdown sucrose into it's fermentable states, glucose and fructose. As a brewer, I'd prefer the yeast to focus on the more important task at hand... fermenting my beer! Belgian Candi sugar is simply sucrose inverted to glucose and fructose. The steps are very simple, 2 pounds of table sugar with just enough water to create a thick syrup and a 1/4 teaspoon of citric acid (I used cream of tartar). Bring the mixture up to 260°F and keep it below 275°F for at least 20 minutes. After 20 minutes the sugar will be completely inverted, then you continue at the same temperature until you get your desired colour, I was aiming for a light amber. Once you've achieved your colour target, increase the temperature to 300°F and immediately remove and pour over a cooking sheet with parchment paper to cool. Once cool, sprinkle with icing sugar to prevent the chucks from sticking together and crack with a hammer. Voila, homemade Belgian Candi sugar.

I've been trying to do at least one new technique with each new brew, this time I wanted to try to do my first multi-rest infusion for my mash. With my mash tun being quite small (5 gallons), it's difficult to do more than 2 temperature infusions, so I decided to "Dough-In" at 104°F and do the Starch Conversion/Saccharification Rest at 150°F. I've been struggling to get a good mash efficiency, so my hope was that starting the mash at 104°F for 30 minutes would allow the enzymes to be distributed and improve my yield. I chose to use the temperature of 150°F for the 60 minutes during the rest of the mash. When you mash between 140°F - 150°F it typically produces a lighter bodied more attenuate beer. With 150°F being at the higher end of the range, I'm hoping to maintain some of the residual sweetness as well.

In order to achieve those mash temperatures, I had to work through some mathematical equations to determine the amount and temperature of the water that needed to be added for the two infusions. Rather than bore you, I'll just mention that I managed to hold the first rest at 104°F  for 30 minutes and the second rest started at 152°F and dropped to 145°F by the end of the full 90 minutes. Following the mash, I separated the wort into the brew pot, added the sparge water (168°F) to rinse the rest of the sugars from the grains and collected 6 gallons of wort in the brew pot. By adding an extra step in my mash schedule, I ended up with an efficiency of 18, which is my worst yet. This is disappointing as I likely won't end up with an ABV above 8%. In hindsight I remember noticing that not all of the grains were well milled, perhaps hindering the conversion and hurting my efficiency. Something to watch more closely for next time.

For this recipe, as with my previous Saison recipe, I did a 90 minute boil. Pilsner malt is more likely to provide the off flavour DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide) in the final product, which has the aroma of creamed corn. DMS is present to some degree in every beer, but it's not desirable in lighter bodied ales and lagers. You can reduce the level of DMS in the beer by increasing the boil time. During the boil, I added hops at the 90 minute and 15 minute marks of the boil. At the 90 minute mark I added 2 ounces of Styrian Golding hops to balance out the sweetness of the wort. At the 15 minute mark I added 1 ounce of Czech Saaz, which will provide very subtle herbal, tea and grassy notes. I also added the Belgian Candi sugar at the 15 minute mark and stirred continuously to prevent it from burning on the bottom of the pot. With 5 minutes left, I added 0.5 ounces of coriander seeds (crushed with a pestle and mortar) to add some citrus flavours.

Once the boil was complete, I cooled the wort, strained it into the fermenter and added the Wyeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale Yeast. I took a sample to measure the original gravity and as I suspected from my poor mash efficiency, it was 1.066, a few points lower than the gravity I was targeting. If anything I would have preferred for the original gravity to be a few points higher than the target, as I'd rather an ABV closer to 9%, instead of below 8%. It could still end up above 8%, but the final gravity will have to finish below 1.008, which may result in the body being too light. In 3 weeks I'll transfer the beer to the secondary carboy for 1 more week of conditioning prior to bottling.

Thanks for reading!